An Imperial Physician
by FunkyWashingMachine
Summary: Having been transported to Sven's reality, Ulaz works in Space Hospital [rated T for somewhat-graphic medical stuff]


At this point in the extraction, a hoktril patient required no anesthetic.

Ulaz had never seen one of this species before – deep maroon skin, scales on the extremities. Whatever it was, it no longer existed in his home reality. But an imperial physician was always prepared to work with something he'd never seen.

He recorded the vitals.

For a patient of this size and body type, they appeared stable. Stable and functionally brain-dead.

There was an atrocity for every reality.

In this one, in the Altean Empire, it was no longer possible for him to hide in plain sight. Their Galra had been extinct for thousands of years, but they still knew one when they saw one.

He was, of course, used to secrecy.

He'd offered the Guns of Gamara skills in both combat and medicine. They said they needed more of the latter.

He understood. But sometimes, if he thought about things too much, he wanted the chance to hurt something.

An imperial physician did not allow himself to think about things too much.

He adjusted the patient's supports and angled the head.

He'd been prepared to die and forget his entire life. He hadn't been prepared to live on in a different reality, wondering every day if the Blade had been found out, if Voltron had pulled through, if the universe remembered that, for a moment, something had felt like hope.

There was only peace for the dead.

The electricity from the patient's heart blinked on the screen.

He began to sterilize the site.

The worst part was always when their consciousness came back. When they realized they were in pain.

In some ways, it was like he had never left.

Perhaps it was all a just dream in the last moments of his life. But he treated it as life just the same.

He was setting up a clamp when the call came in.

Gunshot. Earthling. Prep a table.

Earthings, now, he had seen before.

Earthling blood was more or less compatible with that of Alteans. And fortunately for this one, that was something they had in stock.

And it was fortunate yet again that he hadn't begun the extraction on the hoktril patient. Perhaps this could be considered a good day.

He left the patient in the room.

A working hoktril was a sufficient replacement for the lower brain. Untouched hoktrils were considered non-emergency, and the patient could be left alone.

It didn't surprise him anymore, coming upon quiet rooms with breathing creatures, WAITING. Stable. Functionally brain-dead. Left alone in some room where a doctor had been called to a more pressing situation.

The hospital was quiet and it breathed, with the electronic breath of the non-cogs, with their scarce-blinking eyes not knowing how long they'd been left there.

It was unbecoming of an imperial physician to turn away from a case like this. But he wasn't REALLY one of those, he hadn't been for some time…

* * *

His new patient was the Champion.

But at the same time it wasn't.

The scar was missing, and his arm hadn't been modified.

"Don't give me that nervous look!" growled the patient's companion. "With the proper treatment he will make a full recovery in ninety-three percent of realities, and I have already administered a diastolate."

Not surprising, given the patient's temperature and heart rate.

"Anything else you would have me know?" Ulaz frowned, checking the scan one more time before he touched anything.

"Just that I want you to look alive and competent before you do anything!" the friend put his hands on his hips. "If something goes wrong, that will be YOUR fault and not mine."

"You see this blade?" Ulaz indicated the scabbard at his back without looking up. "I know two hundred and ninety-six ways to kill someone with it. And yet the organizers preferred to station me HERE."

"Then why do you look so concerned about this?"

Ulaz shook his head.

"I thought for a moment that I recognized him. But I don't. Now, leave."

He took a moment to collect himself when the interloper stepped out.

The victim was dubiously conscious, but unresponsive. To be expected under the influence of a diastolate.

It was one of this Altea's better creations. Or possibly one of their stolen ones. A field medication that lowered both body temperature and heart rate, to reduce oxygen demands and bleeding. It had been a good choice in this case. Collapse of a lung, damage to the heart.

The blood wallowed under the cloth, coagulating. It was the first thing that would have to be removed.

The Champion.

Maybe he shouldn't have gotten rid of the patient's friend so quickly.

But if he lived, he could ask him himself. If the patient lived, and if Ulaz wasn't busy taking a hoktril out of a non-cog, or tending another wounded soldier, or filing requests for supplies, or sharpening his blade in case, just in CASE the Alteans discovered the hospital.

He wasn't sure whether to anesthetize the patient.

He would have, ordinarily. As an imperial physician in an imperial facility with all the resources the universe had to take.

But this wasn't an imperial facility and they didn't have a lot in the way of supplies.

If this man was anything like the Champion, he could take it.


End file.
